UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17943, 24 May 1920, Page 6

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

CLAIMS FROM AUCKLAND. VIEWS OP DR ANDERSON. (From Otib Own Cobhbsfondent.) AUCKLAND, May 22. During an interviow between the Minister of Education (Mr O. J. Parr) and the Auckland University College Council, Professor H-.W. Segar said thcro was need for providing adequate accommodation at onco for mental and moral philoeophy, with full facilities for tho carrying , out of research in experimental psychology. Ho instanced the , amount spent and to be spent at Victoria College in providing laboratory equipment in mental science as an indication of the general conviction that psychological study should have laboratory work aa an integral part of it. In home aoienoe thero was also a strong need for tho provision of export teachers in tho sooondary schools, and the meeting of this need involved doing more- than establishing one school of home scionco for the dominion. What had been done in Dimedin would require to be done in tho other university centres. Mr Parr agreed that so far there had been a neglect of tho material things re- , quired to make tb© Auckland University College a euoeess. . Admirable work had been done in educational respects, in spite of the groat difficulties in regard to accommodation and equipment, nnd now that tho university site question had been settled, ho • trusted there would bo erected a building ■worthy of the city and 'the province. Such a building would elicit the pride of tho citizens, and would probably arouse generosity in support of university education on the lines of the munificence of gift that tho Otago University had aroused in the south. As to tho financial requests made by the deputo- • tion, these would have to bo considered by his departmental officers and by his col- , leagues in the Cabinet. Ho agreed with tho necessity for making provision for mental science and home science and education. At the Minister's request, Dγ Anderson (Director of Education), who oamo to Auek- , land specially to meet the council, expressed general agroemont with tho programme of development outlined, but argued that New Zealand was not yet large enough in popu- , lation to allow of a departure from presont v. arrangement. As to specialisation in each \ of the four university centres, experience showed that while the ordinary university education must be given ample facilities in all the four centres, professional schools wero expensive in specialisation that might continue for some time. It had been argued that Auckland should be given preference in agriculture, but he dissented from tho view that there should be a professor of agriculture, regarding it rather as a caso analogous to medicine—a subject, that was to say, calling for teaching in many departments, lie requests of the council would be given, immediate departmental oonskloration "with a view to something adequate being done.